Billionaire owner has an eye for deals – and yachts

cussions with other players and the Scottish Government will engage in any discussions that are helpful to ensure Grangemouth can continue to make a major contribution to the health and wellbeing of the Scottish economy.”

Unite general-secretary Len McCluskey hit out at Mr Ratcliffe’s handling of the dispute.

“Our politicians need now to step up. Our public utilities cannot be run by those indifferent to considerations of social responsibility,” he said.

“If this means securing financial assistance or even nationalisation, then this must be done. We can have no objections from Westminster when they have handed our nuclear energy future over to the state-owned Chinese and French nuclear industries.”

Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael said UK government officials are in regular contact with the company and the union, and are sharing this information with the Scottish Government. THE billionaire majority owner of Ineos has found himself under growing public scrutiny as the bitter dispute at Grangemouth escalates over the past week.

Jim Ratcliffe, 61, started out as a chemical engineer and rose to become chairman of Ineos in 1998. A grammar school boy from Beverley in Yorkshire, he is now one of the richest businessmen in the UK.

But his jetset lifestyle has come under the spotlight in the Scotland as the dispute at Grangemouth plant escalates. This included pictures of his “superyacht” Hampshire II moored at the French Riviera port of La Ciotat, posted last week.

Mr Ratcliffe bought assets from firms such as BP and turned them around into successful plants. He is credited with building up Ineos from its beginnings in 1998 with a Belgian chemical plant he bought for less than £90 million, through a series of acquisitions, including an $8.7 billion (£5.38bn) deal to buy BP’s chemical division Innovene – which included the Grangemouth refinery.

After graduating from Birmingham University, Ratcliffe joined Esso. He moved into the world of finance after taking an MBA at London Business School.

He now lives in Switzerland on the shores of Lake Geneva.